‘Tis the Season

Overconsumption core—a trend which went viral on TikTok only a few months ago, as a means of showing audiences how many variations of a product influencers own. Presenting as shallow entertainment at first glance, audiences responded with a counter trend, underconsumption core. The public discourse on consumption habits of social media audiences has become quite an interesting one to dissect.

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We live in a cryptically dystopian world; a society full of distractions which move the focus away from the frightening reality of where we’ve come. In a time with increasing religious and political conflicts, climate change, and growing polarization among social groups, it’s become easy to find comfort in escapist behavior projected as social media use. Consequently, we consume vast amounts of content daily which passively feed overconsumption to us as a means of living. It’s important to consider the question of whether we knowingly and willingly partake in overconsumption or if it's a passive side effect from our addiction to social media.

With the introduction of the influencer, our ways of spending and living have become distorted. Additionally, their presence has come to benefit the advertising industry in more ways than just financially. Aside from the cut in monetary costs, influencers have also shortened production and release times for advertising and launching new products. PR packages, product reviews, and sponsored posts have given corporations a well-curated cocktail of organic and paid advertising—growing their brands to wider audiences.

There’s a multitude of factors that could potentially explain the correlation between social media use and overconsumption. Personally, I believe a big part of the equation which has brought overconsumption to the core of our lifestyles are the following two: (1) willing participation in overconsumption as a means of satisfying our lack of dopamine, (2) performative behavior mimicked from what we see online.

The relationship between dopamine and social media has been studied vastly across many disciplines, but most of academia boils down to the fact that our release of dopamine has become altered with the increased use of social media, especially the social validation we receive by posting our lives online. However, as a side effect of influencer marketing, we’ve come to implement short-lived dopamine rushes through performative overconsumption. Along these lines, we’ve all become active shopaholics, even on small scales. Relying on a weekly trip to your local fast fashion corporation for a T-shirt, and getting a drink from Starbucks afterwards just for a TikTok or Instagram story seems harmless and shallow when in fact it’s doing more than we think.

The desire to mimic the “influencer” lifestyle seems to hold great value to a vast amount of online users. The need for being liked, or rather the validation of their behavior comes from the belief that what they see online is the correct way to live. It’s come to a ridiculous point where the distortion of social norms has deemed it appropriate to spend foul amounts of money on new seasonal home decor and own 10 different hydrating face creams at once.

The takeover of overconsumption on our lives has made it almost impossible not to engage with it. Back to School, Halloween, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, New Year's, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and probably more which don’t immediately come to mind have reformatted our ways of existing in today’s capitalistic society. It quickly starts to feel suffocating and overwhelming, not just due to the mass production and wide array of products available.

The commercialization of holidays and special occasions has eliminated much of their essence, or rather their soul. Especially when looking at religious holidays which have now begun to serve primarily as enablers for overconsumption. Christmas and Easter are nowadays rarely celebrated with regard to religious practices but moreso as a means of performative consumerism.

Aside from the obvious issue of sustainability when it comes to unhealthy shopping habits and mass production, the normalization of wanting to have more than we need lies at the core of this problem. Instead of focusing our lives around personal fulfillment from immaterial things, such as spending an afternoon in the park with your loved ones, more and more individuals are gravitating towards short-lived dopamine rushes received from superficial sources.